Abstract

This work studies surface instabilities in switchable homopolymer brushes where the minority chain differs in length from the brush chains. Both off-lattice numerical self-consistent field theory and classical density functional theory are employed. It is found that the two methods agree well with each other as long as the same equation of state for the polymer chains is used.

Received 21 June 2012Accepted 24 July 2012Published online 14 August 2012

Acknowledgments:

S.A.E. acknowledges financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and thanks Professor Sommer for his hospitality during the visit to Dresden. D.R. and J.-U.S. acknowledge financial support under Grant Nos. STA 324/37-1 and So 277/7-1.